No. 98 July/August 2022

Quick show of hands: How many people consider ice an essential part of your daily diet when summer rolls around? In my house, I’ll go through several trays each day without even trying, from brewing iced coffee in the morning to crushing cubes for an evening swizzle, and chilling countless glasses of tea and seltzer in the hours in between. Whether you’ve got trays stacked up in steady rotation in your freezer, or a built-in dispenser that offers mini-blizzards of frozen pebbles at the push of a button, you’ll need plenty of ice on hand for what we’ve got in store for you in our annual Summer Drinks issue.

Simplicity (along with ice) is a key ingredient in many of our favorite summer drinks, and few drinks are easier or more satisfying than tall, fizzy highballs; we’ve got a bunch of recipes for summer sipping. And for a deeper look at a simple tequila highball, check out Kate Bernot’s piece about how Ranch Water went from a Lone Star staple to being suddenly everywhere.

Be sure to also save some ice for the morning, because we serve up several different approaches to making and enjoying cold coffee. And if you’ve been reading this and thinking you’re not the type of person who’d ever wind up with an ice program in your home, then read Pableaux Johnson’s essay relating how the pandemic turned him into exactly that kind of person. In the mood for a beer this afternoon, or maybe a soda? Josh Bernstein explores how the boundaries dividing soft drinks from the beer aisle are becoming increasingly blurry. And the shifting identities in the drinks world don’t stop there—catch Jennifer Fiedler’s feature looking into the small but booming realm of low- and no-alcohol wines.

We’ve also got Robert Simonson’s profile of whiskey journalist and New York Times reporter Clay Risen, ideas on how to incorporate the aloe-accented liqueur Chareau into summer cocktails, a sip-along guide to Flagstaff, Arizona, and Wayne Curtis’ analysis of why so few city-themed cocktails manage to stick around. If you’d like to buy a copy of this issue, click here.

Have a great summer.